Chess Skill in Man and Machine

341 Pages·1983·12.587 MB·English

by  Benjamin Mittman (auth.), Peter W. Frey (eds.)

Chess Skill in Man and Machine
Chess Skill
in Man
and Machine
Edited by
Peter W. Frey
With 104 Illustrations
Springer-Verlag
New York Berlin Heidelberg Tokyo
Peter W. Frey
Northwestern University
CRESAP Laboratory of Neuroscience
and Behavior
2021 Sheridan Road
Evanston, Illinois 60201
USA
AMS Subject Classification: 68-02, 68A45
(C.R.) Computing Classification: 3.64
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Chess skill in man and machine.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Chess-Data processing-Addresses, essays, lectures.
1. Frey, Peter W. (Peter William), 1942-
GV1318.C45 1984 794.1'7 82-19474
© 1977, 1983 by Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced
in any form without written permission from Springer-Verlag, 175 Fifth
Avenue, New York, New York 10010, USA.
Typeset by Maryland Linotype, Baltimore, Maryland.
Printed and bound by Halliday Lithograph, Plympton, Massachusetts.
This book is also available in a clothbound edition within
Texts and Monographs in Computer Science, Chess Skill in
Man and Machine, Second Edition.
9 8 7 6 543 2
ISBN-13: 978-0-387-90815-1 e-ISBN-13:978-1-4612-5515-4
DOl: 1007/978-1-4612-5515-4
This volume is dedicated to my wife, Ruth, and my family,
and to my colleagues whose contributions made this volume
possible. I am especially indebted to David Slate whose
comments and suggestions greatly improved the final version
of this book.
Preface
Ten years of intensive effort on computer chess have produced notable
progress. Although the background information and technical details that
were written in 1975 for the first edition of this book are still valid in
most essential points, hardware and software refinements have had a
major impact on the effectiveness of these ideas. The current crop of
chess machines are performing at unexpectedly high levels. The approach
epitomized by the series of programs developed by David Slate and Larry
Atkin at Northwestern in the middle 1970s (i.e., a sophisticated search
algorithm using very little chess knowledge) was expected to reach an
asymptbtic level of performance no higher than that of a class A player
(USCF rating between 1800 and 2000). This perspective was argued
quite vigorously by Eliot Hearst in Chapter 8 of the first edition and was
held at that time by many chess experts. Subsequent events have clearly
demonstrated that the asymptotic performance level for this type of pro
gram it at least as high as the master level (USCF rating between 2200
and 2400). Current discussions now focus upon whether the earlier reser
vations were wrong in principle or simply underestimated the asymptote.
If there is a real barrier which will prevent this type of program from
attaining a world championship level of performance, it is not evident from
the steady progress which has been observed during the last decade.
The second edition of Chess Skill in Man and Machine includes new
material highlighting recent developments. A newly added Appendix in
cludes a summary of recent games selected by David Slate which charac
terize the current level of achievement in machine chess. In addition, the
new appendix provides information about the International Computer
Chess Association, the establishment of several major prizes for chess
programs, and developments in microcomputer chess. The bibliography
has also been greatly expanded.
The second edition also keeps pace with the development of new ideas
with the addition of two chapters. These chapters extend the debate in i-
vii
Preface
tiated by their predecessors concerning the relative merits of search-based
and knowledge-based programs. In Chapter 9, Ken Thompson and Joe
Condon describe the architecture and inner workings of BeIIe, the current
world champion and the most effective example of a search-intensive
program. In Chapter 10, David Wilkins provides information about his
program, PARADISE, which is currently the most impressive example
of a knowledge-intensive chess program. PARADISE solves deep tactical
positions by using a highly focused search. The different approach used
by these two programs is emphasized by the number of nodes each exam
ines in analyzing a position. PARADISE generates several hundred nodes,
while Belle generates more than ten million. The ideas expressed in these
new chapters provide two fascinating perspectives on an issue which is
crucial to further developments in computer chess. In its general form,
this issue has important ramifications for the entire field of artificial intel
ligence and will be the subject of active debates for many years.
Evanston, IIIinois PETER W. FREY
May, 1982
viii
Contents
1 A brief history of the computer chess tournaments:
1970-1975
Benjamin Mittman
Introduction
Background 2
The tournaments 4
The Soviet Union vs. USA match, 1966-67 6
First United States computer chess championship
(New York, 1970) 7
KAISSA vs. the Soviet Public (Moscow, 1972) 12
First world computer chess championship
(Stockholm, 1974) 13
Fifth United States computer chess championship
(San Diego, 1974) 21
Sixth North American computer chess championship
(Minneapolis, 1975) 24
Significance 32
2 Human chess skill 34
Neil Charness
Should a computer be more like a man? 34
The choice-of-move problem 35
The role of perception 37
The first few seconds 44
Search through the tree of moves 46
Visualizing positions 47
Evaluation 48
Motivation 50
The road to mastery for man and machine 51
ix
Contents
3 An introduction to computer chess 54
Peter W. Frey
Machine representation of the chess board 55
Static evaluation functions 60
The look-ahead procedure 61
Backward pruning 65
Quiescence 68
Plausible-move generators 69
FuiI-width searching 73
The opening 77
The endgame 79
Improvement through competition 79
Future prospects 80
4 CHESS 4.5-The Northwestern University chess
program 82
David J. Slate and Lawrence R. Atkin
Background 82
The development of CHESS 4.0 84
Data base 85
Move generation 89
Tree-searching strategy 91
The evaluation function 93
Tree searching in CHESS 4.5 101
Program performance 113
Conclusions and perspective 113
5 PEASANT: An endgame program for kings and pawns 119
Monroe Newborn
The rules of play 120
A description of the program 120
The program's performance 124
Final observations 129
6 Plans, goals, and search strategies for the
selection of a move in chess 131
Russell M. Church and Kenneth W. Church
Search strategies 134
Search strategies in the movement of the pieces 138
A program to play speed chess 140
x
Contents
7 The heuristic search: An alternative to the
alpha-beta minimax procedure 157
Larry R. Harris
8 Man and machine: Chess achievements and
chess thinking 167
Eliot Hearst
Introduction 167
Why program a computer to play chess? 168
Past achievements of computer-chess programs 170
Chess thinking: Man versus machine 176
Computer chess: Omens, prospectives, and values 197
Concluding comments 198
9 Belle 201
J. H. Condon and Ken Thompson
Introduction 201
Background 201
Chess-specific hardware 202
Second generation 204
Third generation 205
The book 208
An experiment 209
Conclusion 210
10 Using chess knowledge to reduce search 211
David Wilkins
Introduction 211
Overview of PARADISE 213
Concepts and knowledge sources 216
Plans 218
Creating plans 221
How detailed should plans be? 223
Using plans to guide the search 224
A typical medium-sized search 228
Measuring PARADISE's performance 236
Summary and long-term prospects 239
Appendix Chess 4.5: Competition in 1976 243
Peter W. Frey
The Paul Masson American Chess Championship 243
ACM Computer Chess Championships, 1976 245
xi
Contents
Second Appendix Chess 4.5 and Chess 4.6: 248
Competition in 1977 and 1978
Peter W. Frey
The Minnesota Open, February, 1977 248
The First Wager Match with Levy, April, 1977 250
The Second World Computer Championship,
August, 1977 251
Blitz Chess against Michael Stean in London,
September, 1977 253
Twin-Cities Open, April, 1978 254
Walter Browne Simultaneous Exhibition, May, 1978 255
Appendix to the second edition 257
David J. Slate and Peter W. Frey
References and bibliography 315
Subject index 325
xii